THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 • WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY • WKUHERALD.COM • VOLUME 89 NO. 31 PHOTO SPORTS National Signing Day coverage PAGE C1 Wu Force brings eclectic sound to WKU PAGE A6 COLUMN DRY CLEAN ONLY: DRESS FOR YOURSELF PAGE B1 SOFTBALL ALUMNUS RETURNS TO COACH ALMA MATER PAGE B8 LADY TOPPERS CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR COVERAGE OF THE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL GAME TONIGHT AGAINST ARKANSAS STATE SGA SGA BEGINS SPRING SEMESTER PAGE B3 THU 28°/16° FRI 32°/21° SAT 41°/25° SUN 32°/12° WKUHERALD .com BY MACKENZIE MATHEWS [email protected]General education requirements will soon experience a five-hour reduction for students enrolling in Fall 2014 and after. The change was brought on by the “WKU Colonnade Program,” a new core curriculum that requires 39 hours of courses rather than the current 44. It will not be manda- tory for upperclassmen to convert to the program, but they will have the choice to change if it benefits their track to graduation, especially if they change their major. The classes are to be taken Gen ed changes coming Fall 2014 BY MACKENZIE MATHEWS [email protected]Winter Term experienced an in- crease in enrollment this year with a total of 2,139 students engaging in online, travel and in-class courses. Beth Laves, associate vice presi- dent of Extended Learning and Outreach, said Winter Term allows students a chance to raise their GPA. It can also allow them to grad- uate faster than they would having only taken classes during fall and spring semesters. “Winter Term gives students the Winter Term promotes retention BY MACKENZIE MATHEWS [email protected]The upcoming diplomat-in-resi- dence, Michael McClellan, plans to use his numerous qualifications and expe- riences to bring a new form of interna- tional exposure to WKU. McClellan began his work in Public Diplomacy with the Foreign Service during his doctoral studies at Indiana University in 1984. His job was to raise awareness and understanding of US policy in a particular country by living abroad, experiencing the culture. He said that cultural involvement was one of the greatest aspects of his work. “I think the main thing is having a much greater understanding and ap- preciation of international af- fairs: working internationally, living internationally… really being able to get to know other cultures through their people and their politics and their his- tory and issues,” McClellan said. “And to me that’s the best part of this work — all of that international exposure that you get.” Sana’a, Yemen was McClellan’s first assignment in 1985. He then made it to Egypt, Russia, Serbia, Germany, Koso- vo, Ireland, Iraq, Ethiopia and South Sudan, witnessing transformations in several countries. While in Kosovo, the nation was dealing with the aftermath of the Kosovo War and NATO bombing campaign. He was in Iraq right after the fall of Sad- dam Hussein, then again during the withdrawal of US forces. His final assignment was as deputy chief of mission, or the second- in-command diplomat assigned to an embassy, in South Sudan — two years after they established in- dependence. McClellan said it was ultimately grati- fying, but could be difficult and some- times dangerous. He was almost killed twice. “These were challenging and inter - esting assignments, very rewarding — difficult — but rewarding,” he said. In addition to the years of work in the Foreign Service, McClellan has also written a book. “Monasticism in Egypt: Images and Words of the Des- ert Fathers” was published in 2011 and focuses on Egyptian monasteries. His second book, which focuses on Ireland and Ethiopia, is still in progress. Craig Cobane, executive director of the Honors College, said McClellan has a particular expertise in that he can Diplomat-in-residence plans to use experience to aid students SEE WINTER PAGE A3 SEE EDUCATION PAGE A2 SEE DIPLOMAT PAGE A2 Life on the 'out' side Winchester freshman Cody Cox came out of the closet when he was a junior in high school. “I was excited to come to Western because I got to have a clean slate to be who I wanted to be,” he said. “I felt like I was wearing a straight mask before coming out. I now feel more myself.” IAN MAULE/HERALD BY WHITNEY ALLEN [email protected]In the early hours of the morning, Cody Cox sat awake in bed contemplating his next move. Sur- rounded by his sleeping fraternity brothers, Cox decided to listen to what one had told him earlier that night. In a Jan. 11 Facebook post, Cox, a Winchester freshman, officially announced that he was gay. “The time has come,” the post read. “It is time that I have finally announced something to every- one. I am gay . . . This is not something that I can say easily, but has become easier as I have grown up. I do not mean to offend anyone at all, however this is who I am.” While Cox had already told many of his friends and family members, he said those who found out through Facebook were very supportive. Initially, Cox had been hesitant to become open about his sexuality in high school, but upon com- ing to WKU he decided he didn’t want to hide who he was anymore. “For the longest time I battled with that — dur- ing MASTER Plan especially,” he said. In a meeting during MASTER Plan, Cox said a lady asked everyone to stand up and reveal some- thing the floor didn't know about them. “I stood up and said I’m gay,” he said. “Literal- ly every single person on my floor stood up and cheered for me. I wasn’t expecting that. That’s one of the highlights.” Cox said the hardest part of coming to terms with his sexuality personally was being open about it. The path to self-acceptance became easier after he told the first person. Although Cox feels he can be open on campus, he admits that there are times he feels uncomfort- SEE SEXUALITY PAGE A3 McClellan Gay students take pride in sexuality
Transcript
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 • WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY • WKUHERALD.COM • VOLUME 89 NO. 31
PHOTO SPORTSNational Signing
Day coveragePAGE C1
Wu Force bringseclectic sound to WKU
PAGE A6
COLUMNDRY CLEAN ONLY: DRESS FOR YOURSELFPAGE B1
SOFTBALLALUMNUS RETURNS TO COACH ALMA MATERPAGE B8
LADY TOPPERSCHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR COVERAGE OF THE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL GAME TONIGHT AGAINST ARKANSAS STATE
General education requirements will soon experience a fi ve-hour reduction for students enrolling in Fall 2014 and after.
The change was brought on by the “WKU Colonnade Program,” a new core curriculum that requires 39 hours of courses rather than the current 44. It will not be manda-tory for upperclassmen to convert to the program, but they will have the choice to change if it benefi ts their track to graduation, especially if they change their major.
Winter Term experienced an in-crease in enrollment this year with a total of 2,139 students engaging in online, travel and in-class courses.
Beth Laves, associate vice presi-dent of Extended Learning and Outreach, said Winter Term allows students a chance to raise their GPA. It can also allow them to grad-uate faster than they would having only taken classes during fall and spring semesters.
The upcoming diplomat-in-resi-dence, Michael McClellan, plans to use his numerous qualifi cations and expe-riences to bring a new form of interna-tional exposure to WKU.
McClellan began his work in Public Diplomacy with the Foreign Service during his doctoral studies at Indiana University in 1984. His job was to raise awareness and understanding of US policy in a particular country by living abroad, experiencing the culture.
He said that cultural involvement was one of the greatest aspects of his work.
“I think the main thing is having a much greater understanding and ap-preciation of international af-fairs: working internationally, living internationally… really being able to get to know other cultures through their people and their politics and their his-tory and issues,” McClellan said. “And to me that’s the best part of this work — all of that international exposure that you get.”
Sana’a, Yemen was McClellan’s fi rst assignment in 1985. He then made it to Egypt, Russia, Serbia, Germany, Koso-vo, Ireland, Iraq, Ethiopia and South
Sudan, witnessing transformations in several countries.
While in Kosovo, the nation was dealing with the aftermath of the Kosovo War and NATO bombing campaign. He was in Iraq right after the fall of Sad-dam Hussein, then again during the withdrawal of US forces. His fi nal assignment was as deputy chief of mission, or the second-in-command diplomat assigned to an embassy, in South Sudan
— two years after they established in-dependence.
McClellan said it was ultimately grati-fying, but could be diffi cult and some-
times dangerous. He was almost killedtwice.
“These were challenging and inter-esting assignments, very rewarding —diffi cult — but rewarding,” he said.
In addition to the years of work inthe Foreign Service, McClellan hasalso written a book. “Monasticism inEgypt: Images and Words of the Des-ert Fathers” was published in 2011 andfocuses on Egyptian monasteries. Hissecond book, which focuses on Irelandand Ethiopia, is still in progress.
Craig Cobane, executive director ofthe Honors College, said McClellan hasa particular expertise in that he can
Diplomat-in-residence plans to use experience to aid students
SEE WINTER PAGE A3
SEE EDUCATION PAGE A2
SEE DIPLOMAT PAGE A2
Life on the'out' side
Winchester freshman Cody Cox came out of the closet when he was a junior in high school. “I was excited to come to Western because I got to have a clean slate to be who I wanted to be,” he said. “I felt like I was wearing a straight mask before coming out. I now feel more myself.” IAN MAULE/HERALD
In the early hours of the morning, Cody Cox sat awake in bed contemplating his next move. Sur-rounded by his sleeping fraternity brothers, Cox decided to listen to what one had told him earlier that night.
In a Jan. 11 Facebook post, Cox, a Winchester freshman, offi cially announced that he was gay.
“The time has come,” the post read. “It is time that I have fi nally announced something to every-one. I am gay . . . This is not something that I can say easily, but has become easier as I have grown up. I do not mean to offend anyone at all, however this is who I am.”
While Cox had already told many of his friends and family members, he said those who found out through Facebook were very supportive.
Initially, Cox had been hesitant to become open about his sexuality in high school, but upon com-ing to WKU he decided he didn’t want to hide who he was anymore.
“For the longest time I battled with that — dur-ing MASTER Plan especially,” he said.
In a meeting during MASTER Plan, Cox said a lady asked everyone to stand up and reveal some-thing the fl oor didn't know about them.
“I stood up and said I’m gay,” he said. “Literal-ly every single person on my fl oor stood up and cheered for me. I wasn’t expecting that. That’s one of the highlights.”
Cox said the hardest part of coming to terms with his sexuality personally was being open about it. The path to self-acceptance became easier after he told the fi rst person.
Although Cox feels he can be open on campus, he admits that there are times he feels uncomfort-
SEE SEXUALITY PAGE A3
McClellan
Gay students takepride in sexuality
FEBRUARY 6, 2014A2 COLLEGE HEIGHTS HERALD
throughout students’ college careers and will be divided into three catego-ries: Foundations, Explorations and Connections. Each emphasizes dif-ferent aspects of education that build upon one another as students work to graduation.
Larry Snyder, chair of the Colonnade Program Task Force, said not much will change. Most classes will remain in general education, though some were thrown out and others will be taught differently. The largest revisions, how-ever, are the categories.
“The new twist on this is the last cat-
egory. The Connections category is an attempt to help students see how things that they learn in core curricu-lum apply to majors and other issues they’re discovering in upper level class-es,” Snyder said.
Courses now have to prove to be ben-efi cial in order to remain in general education. Snyder said the Task Force developed a set of Student Learning Outcomes that requires each course to assess and verify students are learning the material.
Molly Dunkum, chair of the Colon-nade Program Implementation Com-mittee, said the hope is that the core classes will compliment students’ ma-jors and help associate the mandatory courses with those in chosen fi elds.
“Instead of gen eds being something you get out of the way the fi rst couple years of school, you now have a sort of culminating experience your junior and senior year,” she said.
The transition to a new general educa-tion program began in 2008. Snyder said there were several contributing factors.
The last time WKU was reviewed by the accrediting body Southern Asso-ciation of Colleges (SACs), they said the core curriculum needed improvement. There were too many courses that did not work together to build fundamen-tal knowledge.
Snyder said the committee used a curriculum model from the American Association of Colleges and Universi-ties, making WKU one out of 10 states
taking an initiative on the program.“In many ways, we are on the cutting
edge of what’s happening with general education nationally,” Snyder said.
The fi nal step is execute the plan. With the fi rst ATP almost a month away, Dunkum and the Implementa-tion Committee have been working to get courses and policies fi nalized, while converting faculty, advisors and iCAP to the program. Dunkum said there is a lot that goes into a conversion such as this.
“It’s a big deal to get all this changed, even though if you look at the plans side-by-side, it’s the same course ma-terial... a big chunk of the courses are the same,” she said. “It’s still much in-volved, lots and lots of details involved, to get this thing changed over.”
EDUCATIONCONTINUED FROM FRONT
give fi rst-hand information that can aid students in gaining international opportunities.
“He can talk to students about what it was like to live in Cairo or Moscow,” Co-bane said. “He can give real-world, hands on the ground, feet in the dirt experience.”
Growing up in and around Bowling
Green, McClellan had to fi nd experi-ence and appreciation for the world in his family and teachers. He said he wants to be able to provide support for students with international objectives.
“I wanted to come back and work with students to help prepare them better for international careers, and to have a better idea of the many oppor-tunities that are available to them inter-nationally, especially those that want to pursue a career in diplomacy,” he said.
Cobane said there are probably less than 20 universities across the United States that have a diplomat-in-residence.
“We’re getting a steal of a deal for what he is bringing to WKU,” he said.
McClellan has been a diplomat-in-residence at the University of Michi-gan, where he supervised all universi-ties in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky and in the Rocky Mountain region. There, he was responsible for univer-sities in Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico. His time at WKU, however, willbe solely spent with WKU.
He said he is excited to be a part of theinternational initiative of WKU.
“It’s clear the university is pushing, ina major way, to give the students therea lot more international exposure andopportunities,” McClellan said. “I wantstudents to be able to have a lot of thatsame experience I’ve been blessed tohave, so I thought it was time to giveback in whatever way I could.”
Hangout Creative, a company owned by two WKU graduates currently sta-tioned in Innoplexx, the university’s Student Business Accelerator, will soon be moving to a new location.
Blake Blackburn, a 2012 WKU gradu-ate, said Hangout Creative was found-ed in the summer of 2012 and will be moving from Innoplexx to its own of-fi ce building sometime in February.
He said he and his business partner, 2011 WKU graduate Joel Nivens, are the company’s sole employees and take on all necessary responsibilities.
“I pretty much wear every hat,” Black-burn said. “I’m the engineer, network-er; I do it all.”
Blackburn said Hangout Creative has a different approach than other marketing companies that sell social media, explaining that other com-panies emphasize “likes, comments and shares” on social media websites. Hangout Creative focuses more on the sales side of the business.
“I feel that small business owners re-ally need our product because these new avenues of marketing, they’re un-derutilized or there’s not a lot of know-how,” Blackburn said. “And I wanted to be the business that understands and that gives small business owners the ability to be competitive in an expen-sive marketing fi eld.”
Hangout Creative has over 25 clients from Kentucky, southern Illinois, In-diana and Tennessee, including Nat’s Outdoor Sports, the Medical Institute of Kentucky, Overtime Sports Bar and Grill and Hilligan’s.
Doug Rohrer, associate vice president of Research and Development, said the Student Business Accelerator is intend-ed to help students who want to start their own companies.
“We give them some help getting started and they don’t pay rent,” he said. “That’s where Hangout Creative actually got started, as a student com-pany that has shared space in a room called the Innoplexx.”
Jeff Hook, director of the Small Busi-ness Accelerator said Innoplexx’s goal
is to “foster and support student entre-preneurship.”
He said students can be a part of In-noplexx even after graduation.
“They (Hangout Creative) are en-gaged in the same way,” Hook said. “I would say they’re more independent in that they’re out in the marketplace, they’re getting customers, they’re spending more time executing their business model than discussing their business model with us internally.”
Nivens said Hangout Creative will remain a part of Innoplexx despite the change in location.
“We kind of feel like we’re a part of them now,” he said. “And I don’t think
we’ll ever really leave that even though we’ve both graduated.”
He said an incentive to stay connect-ed to Innoplexx was the assistance the program provides.
“We get guidance and help from Jeff and from Doug and all those guys over there,” he said. “They‘ve all done this. They all know what the next step is.”
Nivens said Hangout Creative will soon be pursuing a venture in Gulf Shores and is also looking to expand the company’s operations to Nashville.
“We’re kind of just looking to grow now,” he said. “That’s our big next is just growing into a bigger company.”
Student-run social media business taking off Blake Blackburn, Hangout Creative founder
I feel that small business owners really need our product because these new avenues of marketing,
they’re underutilized or there's not a lot of knowhow.”
opportunity to catch up on a missed class, concentrate on one more chal-lenging course or even get ahead in their hours,” she said.
Laves said research has recently shown that taking classes between semesters promotes retention and the ability to graduate within four years due to continuing classwork during breaks.
“Our research shows that Winter Term promotes retention by bridging the gap between semesters, which encourages students to continue in the spring,” she said.
Alicia Bingham, summer and winter program coordinator, said students take advantage of several opportunities offered through Winter Term.
“If they dropped a class in the fall, they can pick it up in the Winter Term, so that can catch them up,” she said.
“It’s also a good way to get ahead. Students can progress towards their graduation faster and lighten their load in the fall and spring, if they plan it out correctly.”
A GPA drop during the semester has led to several students saving their fi -nancial aid residuals in order to pick up a class over the break, and taking courses through study away or study abroad has also created a greater inter-est in winter classes.
Bingham said travel study programs have risen by almost fi fty students, as well as an increase in online courses,
giving students a convenient alterna-tive to classes.
“I think it was that we offered the courses that students seemed to need,” she said.
Bingham said the enrollment increase was caused by several factors, such as winter programs marketed towards freshmen and sophomores.
Bingham said it was important un-dergraduates were aware of winter pro-grams.
“We wanted to get freshmen and sophomores to at least know what Win-ter Term was,” she said. “That way they could plan on it, and, actually, we saw an increase in our freshmen and soph-omore numbers.”
There are several improvements win-ter programs are preparing to make in order to increase student success.
Laves said a concept committee has been formed that includes Aca-demic Affairs, Student Affairs, Cam-pus Services, and faculty representa-tives.
Bingham said one goal is to bring more students back on campus ear-lier than when spring semester be-gins.
“We have MASTER Plan in the fall, but we don’t have anything like that for students that start in the spring, and we have quite a few students that actually start in the spring,” she said.
“We’re looking at ideas of increasing engagement on campus before the spring semester actually starts, since we are out for so long.”
WINTERCONTINUED FROM FRONT
sports bar. But Cox thinks the best way to help others understand what it's like to be gay are one-on-one talks.
Kristi Branham, assistant professor in Diversity and Community Studies, also takes the opportunity to speak with people who don't agree with her lifestyle when the opportunity pres-ents itself.
“I’m an educator so I go and talk to them,” she said. “I don’t want to fi ght and I defi nitely don’t want to live in a way that I’m shaking my fi st at people as they go by or nurturing that kind of antagonism.”
Branham says that she tries to be as open about her sexuality as possible for her students because she believes it is helpful for them to see someone who is fearless about her sexuality.
Having mentored sev-eral students throughout the years that have strug-gled with their sexuality or gender, Branham said she admires the students who are brave enough to be open about who they are.
“It’s a challenge,” she said. “It's dif-fi cult to keep going when you’re walk-ing into the student building and someone is calling you a faggot in front of everybody else.”
Fort Knox junior Anna Nuckols said she fi rst realized she was a lesbian in high school, and was out to her fam-ily and peers by the time she came to WKU. Before making the move to Bowling Green, however, Nuckols said she did some research.
“Before I decided to come to West-ern, I googled . . . to see if Western had a ‘gay kids club’ basically, and found Student Identity Outreach,” she said.
“(I) thought, ‘Okay, good, got that base covered.’ Just the fact that there's a group that exists on campus for stuff like this, I think that says a lot.”
Nuckols said her experience as a les-bian on campus has been exception-ally positive.
“I can only think of one instance when something was said to me that I didn't entirely appreciate,” she said.
“I was walking to class one day . . . and there were guys driving by, and one of them leaned out of the window and yelled 'go buy a strap on' really ag-gressively," she said, adding that she laughed it off with a humorous retort.
Cox said when he fi rst came to col-lege he expected to be welcomed by a liberal and accepting campus com-munity. He said he soon discovered
everyone had their own opinions.
He considered transfer-ring at the end of this se-mester to a more liberal campus but decided to stay because he wanted to be a part of making it more acceptable to be gay here at WKU.
“I’m glad that at 18 I’mpursuing to be this leader for the gay community so that way more and more people can feel free to be who they are, especially here because it isn’t easy at times," he said "You just got to be you."
Cox hopes the student body won't judge a book by its cover.
“When somebody sees me, when they fi rst look at me, they might not get that fi rst thought that I’m gay,” he said. “Then they might hear my voice and think differently.”
“Then they might hear my story and understand ‘God, that kid has gone through hell and back and so have I,” he continued. “He’s no different than me. He’s a human.’”
SEXUALITYCONTINUED FROM FRONT
Crime report
WKUHERALD.com
IN MY
SKINIn My Skin is a weekly fea-ture series that looks to tell the stories of diverse stu-dent populations at WKU
• Police served Dundee, Fl sophomore Rich-ard Henderson a criminal summons for theft by unlawful taking on Jan 4 in Grise Hall.
TopsBottoms
&
TOPS to the Polar Vortex passing
TOPS to the fi ve game wining streak
BOTTOMS to the regional campuses being closed and the main campus not
BOTTOMS to us probably jinxing it
OPINIONTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 @WKUHERALDWKUHERALD.COM
On behalf of the Student Gov-ernment Association, I am hon-ored to welcome you back to the Hill! If this is your fi rst term at WKU, congratulations and wel-come to the Hilltopper family.
As we move through the second week of the semester, I wish all stu-dents, faculty and staff the best this year.
Your time in college is more than just learning; it is about experiencing. As I refl ect on my past three years on the Hill, I re-alize that some of my most en-riching academic experiences and fondest memories were from what I learned outside of
the classroom. I encourage you to take an ac-
tive part in student life. The Hill-topper experience provides many opportunities for you to connect academically, socially, and cultur-ally.
As a member of the student body, SGA is committed to rep-resenting and serving you. The decisions made within SGA have a signifi cant impact on university policy and issues that affect current as well as future students.
If you have an issue or con-cern that needs to be addressed, please feel free to contact me di-rectly.
SGA meetings resume this week. The Student Government Association offers many student services, including scholarships,
organizational aid, free Scantrons, Safe Ride and many more. Services are listed on our website, www.wku.edu/sga.
All students are invited to at-tend the Student Government As-sociation meetings which are on Tuesdays at 5:00 p.m. in Cravens Library Room 111, or stop by the SGA offi ce during offi ce hours in Cravens 013.
We hold fall and spring se-mester elections. Contact the SGA offi ce ([email protected] or 745-4354) to learn about how you can apply for one of our many positions.
I look forward to talking with you.
As always, Go Tops!Keyana BokaStudent Body President and
With the end of “Co-ven,” FX’s hit “Ameri-can Horror Story” has now completed three seasons. The show is billed as an “anthol-ogy series,” meaning that each season in-troduces a new cast of characters, a new time period and a new loca-
tion.While those elements may shift
every season, one part is consistent: “American Horror Story” is always a wild ride. Combining chills, thrills and even laughs, the show has carved out a niche as the funniest little horror show on TV.
So what makes it work so well? How does a show that literally hits the reset button every season maintain its effectiveness?
For one thing, it’s actually scary. The three seasons (subtitled as “Murder House,” “Asylum” and “Co-
ven”) all tap into and play on com-mon fears.
“Murder House” features the enig-matic Rubber Man, a bevy of ghosts, demon spawn and probably most horrifying of all, a violent home inva-sion.
“Asylum” has an unsettling setting — a corrupt 1960s mental institution — and also features demonic posses-sion, alien invasion, amputation and a very nasty Santa.
“Coven,” the most whimsical entry in the series, takes a lighter tone, but still showcases the titular horrors. Eye gouging, voodoo, reanimation and twisted body mortifi cation all play a part in the season’s plot.
Some have criticized the every-thing but the kitchen sink approach that “American Horror Story” often takes in terms of horror, but it’s hard to deny its effect.
By packing in the scares from start to end and by taking them seriously, “American Horror Story” asserts itself as a unique offering in the ever-diver-sifying TV landscape.
Besides its plethora of scares,
“American Horror Story” also works because it’s devilishly funny.
All three seasons exhibit the show’s signature “campy horror” tone, artful-ly blending the horrifi cally dark with the darkly comedic.
“Murder House” featured a pack of darkly hilarious ghosts that rolled in and out of the main char-acters’ lives. “Asylum” featured a demonic nun who didn’t take crap from anybody and a terrifi c ren-dition of popular 60s song “The Name Game.”
“Coven” is easily the funniest season so far, featuring scene-steal-ing performances from Gabourey Sidibe and Emma Roberts. Hi-larious but deep turns from Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett as women caught up in the throes of centu-ries-old racism only added to the comedy of “Coven.”
By combining dark comedy with dark themes, “American Horror Sto-ry” is able to keep itself from becom-ing too much of a downer.
Read the rest of my column online! at wkuherald.com
The spell of American Horror Story
SGA
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THE REMOTE
PAITColumnist
COMIC
@mmhmmayaaaa: WKU is nowa pool, but hey...we still have to walk to classes tomorrow morning #cool— Sent 5:55 PM / 4 Feb 14
@mikehall_22: God knows #WKUisn't canceling class tomorrowso I'm going to invest in some ice skates and skate my way to class in the morning.— Sent 6:10 PM / 4 Feb 14
@miketincherr: At what meet-ing was #WKU like "we're on a huge hill where rivers roll when it rains. We don't need a draining system."— Sent 5:23 PM/ 4 Feb 14
TWEETS FROM
THE HILL
@madisonILkeller: Even #wkuknows I'm single because I just got an email saying there's an activity for all the singles...#patheticlife— Sent 12:22 PM/ 4 Feb 14
@dhudson012: If WKU had aheart at all they'd cancel classwith all this rain. I don't think they off er boat parking on their campus.— Sent 4:49 PM PM/ 4 Feb 14
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Welsh demonstrates his trumpeting skills as Washburn and Fei provide a gradual crescendo of accompanying sounds. The Wu Force member also played piano and guitar.
Kai Welsh plays the piano with his band, The Wu-Force, as part of the WKU Cultural Enhancement Series at WKU's Van Meter Hall on Tuesda night. The Appalachian-Chi-nese avant-folk trio, which features Welsh, Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei, provided audiences a setlist that included songs sung in both English and Chinese.
The Wu-Force serenades the crowd with a blend of familiar melodies and eclec-tic Eastern chords. “I thought I was going to be a lawyer because that was practical,” Washburn said. “And I'm playing banjo in a weird, kung-fu Appala-chian indie folk rock band.”
PHOTOTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 @WKUHERALDWKUHERALD.COM
By Brian Powers
FORCEIn full
The Wu-Force kicks off the spring edition of the Cultural
Enhancement Series with a performance in Van Meter.
LIFETHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 @WKUHERALDWKUHERALD.COM
Fashion, for both men and women, gives a unique op-portunity for a person to ex-
press themselves completely. It creates a piece of living artwork. Lit-erally. Fabrics draped and stitched in a variety of methods blanket the one true living canvas: you.
In this column, I hope to en-hance that artwork by introducing and exploring new trends, offering suggestions to enhance style and providing commentary on the hot topic issues of the fashion industry. Starting… now.
A huge internet trend has been cir-culating through the blogosphere at the start of this new year. That trend being lists, compiled and edited by several online news sources, docu-menting clothes, shoes, etc., that women love and men, well, hate.
Excuse me, but what? This is a real thing? Sadly, yes. The new year has started off with women being told that things they wear, things they may love, don’t appeal to a gen-eral, broad group of men polled for these articles.
The lists have included, but are not limited to, peplum anything, beanies, wedge sneakers, fl oppy hats, open side shirts, bright lipstick, heavy eye makeup, pointy toes, fake nails, high waisted jeans and skirts, fold over ankle boots, ultra high heels, pantsuits, gladiator sandals, drop-crotch pants, hair bows, ban-gles, oversized sweaters, “mullet” dresses (also known as high-low dresses) and shoulder pads. Basi-cally, half of what is in your make up drawer and closet.
Even websites like the Huffi ngton Post have fallen guilty of this atroc-ity, including a video with their post,
Women should embrace their own style
Columnist Kae Holloway introduces her weekly fashion column. The column will appear on Thursdays, discussing trends, giving style tips and commenting on fashion faux pas. Dress: Asos; Shoes: Forever 21 DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/HERALD
With the memory of Paul Walk-er’s tragic demise barely erased from our memories, it seems im-possible for the Reaper to come knocking again so soon.
On Sunday morning, Oscar-win-ning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead inside his Green-wich Village apartment. He was 46.
Throughout his life, Hoffman struggled with drug abuse. He checked himself into rehab for a heroin addiction last May.
This makes the fact that Hoff-man’s friend and colleague, David Bar Katz, found his body with a needle in his arm and an envelope full of heroin nearby all the more abhorrent.
Did the gravity of Hoffman’s work weigh a bit too much on him?
It’s no secret that the actor has pursued some of the most ambi-tious roles in the history of fi lm and the stage.
He won an Oscar for his role in “Capote,” in which he portrayed the titular author with eccentric-ity and poise. For a guy with such a deep voice, Hoffman nailed Truman Capote’s nasally, high-pitched drawl.
In 2010, he starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman." The production, directed by Mike Nich-ols, drew mixed reviews, but Hoffman was nominated for a Tony award.
I remember Hoffman most nota-bly for his wide range of fi lm work. The man was a chameleon, adding depth and complexity to every role from a brooding international ter-rorist in “Mission: Impossible III,” to the manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team in “Moneyball” to a charismatic cult leader in “The Master."
Most recently, Hoffman proved a welcome addition to the “Hun-ger Games” franchise as Plutarch Heavensbee, the Capitol’s new Head Gamemaker. I saw on Twitter recently that Lionsgate has no plans to recast the role for the upcoming “Mockingjay” sequels.
Part 1 is fi nished and will be re-leased this coming Thanksgiving. Part 2 is currently fi lming in an-ticipation of a Thanksgiving 2015 release, but for now it is unclear if production will halt in the wake of Hoffman’s death.
He still has two other projects on the way this year – the Sundance
An actor with a stellar portfolio gone too soon
THE REEL
SEE REEL PAGE B2SEE WU FORCE PAGE B2
CULTURECLASH
Wu Fei plays the guzheng with her band, Wu Force, as part of the WKU Cultural Enhancement Series at WKU's Van Meter Hall on Tuesday night. “The history of the guzheng is about 2500 years (old),” Fei said. “Anything that’s less than a thousand years we think is young.” BRIAN POWERS/HERALD
Students, faculty and small chil-dren snapped their fi ngers and sang along to the rhythms of the Wu-Force Tuesday night. The per-formance featured costume chang-es, instrumental harmonies and bilingual lyrics sung in English and Chinese.
“It was awesome,” Katie Rob-erts, a Bowling Green sophomore, said. “A lot of my friends wanted to come.”
Ke Peng, a Chinese professor in the Department of Modern Lan-guages, helped introduce the Wu-Force.
“Their music help us see a world without barriers,” Ke said. “A world with ultimate possibilities.”
The Wu-Force featured Kai Welch, Wu Fei and Abigail Wash-burn.
Washburn, who sang and played
the banjo, thanked the audience for coming despite the cold rainy weather.
“Thank you for being absolute heroes of the weather,” Washburn said. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
Many songs featured lyrics in English and Chinese. For one, Welch sang and strummed his acoustic guitar as Wu played her guzheng and Washburn picked her banjo. Welch sang lyrics in English, while Wu and Washburn sang back in Chinese.
Washburn introduced Welch as a guy who was conceived in a teepee, raised in a cabin and “ran
around naked until he was at least fi ve,” and said Wu played the gu-zheng like a wild woman.
Washburn also talked about her own suburban background.
“I thought I was gonna be a law-yer, cause that was practical,” she said. “And I’m playing banjo in a weird kung-fu Appalachian indie folk rock band.”
One song, called “Swallow Bridge,” told the Chinese story of a daughter of heaven who fell in love with a sheepherder. However, the father of the daughter wanted to keep the two separate. So all the swallows made a bridge between
Wu Force fuses sounds of China and the U.S.Abigail Washburn, member of Wu Force
I thought I was gonna be a lawyer, cause that was practical, and I'm playing banjo in a weird kung-
fu Appalachian indie folk rock band.”
interviewing Marc Lamont Hill, a “women’s fashion expert,” on why men just hate these trends.
Granted, none of these videos and articles are directly saying “Hey, you in the peplum, don’t wear that if you want a man,” but in some cases it is heavily implied. Especially when said expert says outright that peplum looks “ri-diculous,” claiming they make women look pregnant.
Basically, I am an individual, and I will wear what I wear, when I want to wear it. And so will everyone else.
Wear what you want to wear. Wear what makes you feel confi dent and beautiful, because if you feel that way in your clothes, it won’t matter what
you’re wearing. Your inner confi dence will radiate.
One could even rock a potato sack with as much style and grace as Au-drey Hepburn did in her little black Givenchy dress if they do it with con-fi dence.
Girls, wear your peplum, wear your sneaker wedges and rock your gladi-ators. Honestly, pair your peplum with your sneaker wedges, stack on some bangles and wear the brightest lipstick you can. Well… don’t really do that, but you get where I’m going with this.
Wear what makes your inner per-sonality shine, and don’t let the ideas of anyone else, guy or girl, tell you what you can’t wear. If you can achieve that, it won’t matter what you’re wearing. People will take notice.
heaven and earth to connect the two, Washburn said.
Wu, who previously went backstage, emerged in a white dress and sang while gently waving a fan.
Wu amused the audience again with another costume change to play the part of a bearded old man in a song about a rural girl who travels to Shanghai.
Later, the band invited the audience to sing along with a song called Wu-Force, a song about the meaning of the band’s name.
“Wu can mean a lot of things in Chi-nese,” Washburn said. “But in this song
it means the nothing that means the potential for everything.”
The song was a rare one that the Wu-Force had performed only twice, Welch said.
Wu-Force ended its performance with a song called Ya Li Da which means big pressure or big pair, depending on how it’s pronounced.
After the performance Ke Peng ex-plained her reaction to the trio.
“It’s very smart. It’s atypical,” Ke said. “It’s simple but you get the idea.”
Washburn said that she wants to leave the performance with a perspec-tive.
“Think about the possibility of new combinations,” Washburn said.
WKU’s Confucius Institute’s upcom-ing Spring Festival Gala prepares to as-tound the Bowling Green community with student performers from Hang-zhou Normal University.
The gala, a mixture of traditional dance and music, will take place Satur-day at 6:30 p.m. in Van Meter Hall. Ad-mission is free and open to the public.
Betty Yu, associate director of educa-tional outreach for the Confucius Insti-tute, said they have been preparing for the event all year and are extremely ex-cited, especially since the gala doubles as celebration of the Chinese New Year.
“I believe it gives students a chance to experience Chinese culture,” she said. “There’s a variety of talent that exists, and it’s great for students to see that. We are happy to share the event with the students of Bowling Green.”
Founded in 1908, Hangzhou Normal University offers a wide range of de-grees for students, boasting a popula-tion of nearly 23,000 full-time students, according to the university website.
WKU is one of four stops for the student troupe’s tour. After the gala, they will visit University of Memphis, Middle Tennessee State University and University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
Lawrenceburg junior Jessica Brumley
will be one of the emcees for the event. After spending two summers in
China with the Confucius Institute, she said she’s interested in seeing Chinese students visiting America.
“It’s really nice to see this cross-cul-tural sharing,” she said.
Cultural events on campus, such as the gala, help students overcome ste-reotypes and expand their boundaries, Brumley said.
“China and Eastern culture is some-thing a lot of Americans don’t know much about,” she said. “When I say that I speak Chinese and travel to Chi-na, people look at me strange, but if I said I spoke French and visited France, I wouldn’t get that reaction. College is the time to understand the world around you and the gala is an excellent opportunity for that.”
Confucius Institute excited for upcoming Spring gala
up in the war on terror.It’s diffi cult to pick a favorite of Hoff-
man’s performances because he always seems to lose himself in each character. No matter who or what he portrays, he consistently becomes his subject.
He can be funny, somber, angry, laid back, morose or joyous. Few, if any, ac-tors working today can pull this off like Hoffman can, and the industry will cer-tainly be worse off without him.
darling “God’s Pocket” in which Hoff-man will play the lead role of a man try-ing to cover-up the accidental death of his stepson. The other is Anton Corbi-jn’s international thriller “A Most Want-ed Man," about an illegal immigrant to Hamburg, Germany who gets caught
THE REELCONTINUED FROM LIFE
FASHIONCONTINUED FROM LIFE
Jessica Brumley, junior
College is the time to understand the world around you and the gala is an excellent
A framed WKU diploma hangs on an offi ce wall in the Warren County Justice Center. A wooden desk strewn with manila folders and crisp white papers rests in the center of the room. Behind it sits War-ren County Attorney, Amy Mil-liken.
Milliken was granted one of the highest honors for a lawyer the opportunity to ar-gue in front of the Supreme Court.
“I could never imagine it,” Milliken said. “Its beyond my wildest dreams.”
Milliken stood amongst the nine Supreme Court jus-
tices in Washington D.C. and was offi cially sworn in to present cases before the high court on Jan 22. She was one of 11 lawyers to take the oath and the only from Ken-tucky.
She recalls absolute silence in the room as she took the oath and struggled to contain her excitement when she saw Sandra Day O’Connor sitting a short distance away.
Milliken gradu-ated from Warren East High School and started at WKU in 1989 where she studied politi-cal science and criminology. She said she always knew she wanted to become a lawyer.
Milliken graduated from WKU in 1993 and attended Northwestern University School of Law. After law school, she returned to Bowl-
ing Green to work for the county. In 2004, she was sworn in as the fi rst female coun-ty attorney in Warren County.
Her desire to see Warren County fl our-ish is a primary goal of her career.
“I want to see War-ren County grow and thrive,” Milliken said. “I want to have a lasting, positive impact.”
From job growth to devel-oping new roads and provid-ing support in the schools, the
mother of three has a role in nearly every aspect of Warren County
Rick DuBose, Alumni As-sociation executive director, said Milliken is a dedicated Alumni Association board member.
“It speaks highly of Amy's abilities, first of all, but we hope it is also a statement about the quality of educa-tion one receives at WKU,"
he said. “It is a high honor to earn
the right to argue cases beforethe highest court in the land,and her success certainly willshine a bright light on the Uni-versity.”
On her trip to take the oath,Milliken brought with her a redtowel with WKU embroideredin big white letters.
The Student Government Asso-ciation held their fi rst meeting of the spring semester Tuesday night.
SGA President Keyana Boka said she talked to dining services about 24-hour dining for students. WKU Restaurant and Catering Group is currently look-ing at different options, especially Ein-stein’s Bagels, because of its location in a 24-hour study area.
Boka announced SGA will be plan-ning a trip to Frankfort called “Rally for Retention” in response to WKU's $1.8 million dollar budget cut. The rally will include speeches and one-on-one meetings with legislators to discuss the cuts.
Executive Vice President Mark Reeves outlined a two year budget the state government is voting on and the importance of student involvement in the process. Reeves said WKU is not in a good environment fi scally and we need to pay attention to that.
“As SGA, we need to be on our toes because there are going to be some tough budget cuts,” Reeves said.
The body devised a proposal meant to revise the process by which students changed their majors. SGA will review it and vote on the change-of-major ad-vising process next week.
The modifi cations include providing students a window of time to change their majors and have it approved by their advisor. The other aspect of the proposal would compel students with
up to 30 hours credit hours who are seeking an associate degree to offi cially declare a major before registering for their next term. For undergraduate stu-dents, the cap would be 60 hours.
“Students are better retained if they have declared a major earlier on,” Boka said.
SGA nominated and voted Student Affairs committee chair Nolan Miles as a candidate for Coming Home King.
SGA Senator Cain Alvey encouraged participation in a university senate committee. Alvey said there should be a bigger voice from students on the stu-dent policy handbook.
There were fi ve resignations last se-mester. The legislative research com-mittee chair and public relations chair were two of the fi ve seats left vacant.
One bill was read and approved after SGA suspended its bylaws.
The bill, Bill 1-14-S, will allocate $500 to the 2014 Healthy Days 13th an-nual Student Health Fair. The event will host vendors and activities promoting better student health. It will be held on Feb. 26.
Boka said she thought the fi rst meet-ing of the new semester went well.
“I think our meeting was very pro-ductive,” Boka said.
SGA reconvenes, discusses state budget cut possibilitesMark Reeves, SGA Vice President
As SGA, we need to be on our toes because there are going to be budget cuts.”
Rick DuBose, Alumni Association executive director
It speaks highly of Amy's abilities, fi rst of all, but we hope it is also a statement about the quality of eduation one receives at WKU.”
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The WKU men’s and women’s track and fi eld teams walked away from the multi-day Indiana Relays this weekend in Bloomington, Ind., with two wins and two school records, highlighted by an impressive showing from the Topper sprinters and a record setting weekend for senior thrower Jessica Ramsey.
Topper sprinters sophomore Ja’Karyus Redwine and senior Chris Chamness emerged victorious in their respective races.
Redwine took the 200-meter dash
with a time of 22:06. This fi nish marked the fi rst career individual win for Red-wine at WKU.
Chamness also nabbed his fi rst ca-reer individual win this weekend, grab-bing gold in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49:07.
With the conference championships only two weeks away, the Topper sprint-ers certainly made strides toward their goals. However, the show was stolen by the Topper throwing team, led by senior Jessica Ramsey.
On Friday night, Ramsey heaved the weight 66-feet-9 ¾ inches to break the school record she set last week at the
Vanderbilt Indoor Invitational. Ramsey’s clip at the Indiana Relays ranks 14th in the NCAA this season.
Ramsey didn’t stop there, beating her own school record in the shot put as well. Ramsey launched the shot put 53-feet-9 ¼ inches on Saturday to set her own as well as WKU’s new record, a mark that ranks 15th in the NCAA this season.
“We are really coming together as a team," Ramsey said. "We are constantly motivating each other and giving each other strength.”
Both of her marks in the weight throw and the shot put earned her third-place
honors amongst the highly competitive fi eld.
Junior thrower Travis Gerding also had a solid day throwing the weight, re-cording a season-best clip of 59-feet-11 inches to capture fi fth-place accolades. Gerding’s toss ranks fi fth among Sun Belt Conference throwers this season. Next up for WKU is the Meyo Invita-tional, where the team will enter Notre Dame’s home turf in South Bend, Ind.
“We did all the heavy lifting in the fall months,” head coach Erik Jenkins said, “We have to stay disciplined, healthy and humble. We’re defi nitely moving in the right direction as a program.”
Throwers and sprinters shine at Indiana RelaysTRACK AND FIELD
said. “I can see the improvements that have been made on campus. But I thought when I went to school here that everything was nice, and they con-tinue to upgrade it. It’s a nice, small southern town and I enjoy it.”
Not only did she want to stay in-volved in the game, she said coaching as a whole is very rewarding.
“For me, it’s seeing a kid have suc-cess," she said. "It’s so enjoyable to see a kid who has maybe never expe-rienced the postseason or never ex-perienced being on a winning team go out and accomplish something no one else thought they could do. And helping that kid go along in academ-ics...and watching them graduate is huge.”
Despite living and going to school here for a few years, Tudor said that she is not comfortable being back at her alma mater, and that she is defi nitely experiencing nerves in regards to her fi rst season.
“I will never say I’m comfortable,” Tudor said. “I would say if you get com-fortable then you need to stop coach-ing. There’s always a good set of nerves.”
Although she was hired in August and has been around for a few months, she said the transition over to the new coaching staff for the team was a little bumpy in the beginning. She attribut-ed this transition to different coaching styles, but the adjustment overall has been positive.
“I think we’re getting adjusted very good so far,” she said. “We’ve only been back for a week and a half and, you know, we’re looking to getting our sea-
son started on a high note.”Senior pitcher Emily Rousseau
agreed that the transition took some getting used to at fi rst.
“I think now it’s been really good,” she said. “We all just had to get used to each other in the beginning like any normal team would have to do. Now that we’re all in the same rhythm, it’s going really well.”
Another senior, infi elder Olivia Wat-kins, said that life in general was about adjusting, and becoming familiar with a new coach is something that many teams have to go through constantly.
“Life is about adjusting,” Watkins said. “Now it’s good...Any other team has to do the same thing.”
Tudor has nine years of head coach-ing experience, including four years at IPFW where she posted a .680 win-ning percentage. Before that, she was the head coach at Belmont University where she led the Bruins to 36 wins — the fi fth most in program history. She also coached at Ohio Wesleyan Uni-versity, a Division-III school, and was a graduate assistant at North Alabama, where she received a Master of Arts de-gree in counseling.
This experience of coaching at all different levels has taught her a lot, she said, including things not to do as a coach.
“I’ve learned to listen, and I think that’s the most important thing,” she said. “I try to listen to what they’re say-ing and not expect them to do every-thing you say right at that moment. Every year I change...not my philoso-phy but my drills and different ways for them to understand.
“Another thing to go with listening is patience," she continued. "Letting things unfold a little bit and trusting
that your players are going to do the right things. Not always ruling with an iron fi st. I’d say I’ve become a lot nicer in my old age.”
Although Tudor’s coaching style overall has changed throughout the years, Watkins said that all coaches really expect the same thing, so the transition to the new coach was not ex-treme.
“Coaches expect a lot out of their players, so it wasn’t anything drastic or anything,” Watkins said. “I mean, it was all the same if you really think about it.”
Tudor is hoping to build off of the success that the team had last year led by Perry. Last year the Lady Toppers went 43-18 overall and 20-3 in the Sun Belt Conference, good numbers for the school’s fi rst-ever regular season con-ference championship.
The season ended for WKU in the fi rst round of the NCAA Division-I Re-gionals. The team was able to record a pair of wins against USC Upstate in the Regional Round but lost twice Ala-bama.
Because of that success last year, Rousseau said the bar has been raised
for the program.“Absolutely (the bar has been
raised),” she said. “That was one of the things we talked about. Last year we didn’t really have a target on our back. We were ranked number six preseason out of the conference and we ended up being number one, so we kind of defi ed the odds. But I think it defi nitely puts a target on our backs this year.”
That experience with postseason play that the players had last year is go-ing to help the team this year, accord-ing to Tudor.
“That experience that the kids that returned have, we’re going to build on that,” Tudor said. “I think once you’ve been there you get a good taste in your mouth and want to go back. With our coaching staff, we’ve been in the postseason so we’re kind of familiar with what it takes. Everything kind of has to fall in a row for it all to play out.”
Tudor and the Lady Toppers will open the season this Friday against Lib-erty in Fort Myers, Fla., in the FGCU/Four Points by Sheraton Invitational.
SOFTBALLCONTINUED FROM B6
Amy Tudor, Soft ball Coach
It’s so enjoyable to see a kid who has maybe never experienced the postseason or never ex-perienced being on a winning team go out and
accomplish something no one else thought they could do. And helping that kid go along in aca-demics...and watching them graduate is huge.”
Men's Sun Belt Conference Standings
Georgia State16-6 9-0
WKU15-7 7-2
UALR12-10 7-3
Arkasas State12-8 5-4
UT-Arlington9-12 4-5
UL-Lafayett e13-9 4-5
UL-Monroe6-10 4-5
Texas State6-15 2-6
Troy7-14 2-7
South Alabama7-15 1-8
BASKETBALL
Women's Sun Belt Conference Standings
Arkansas State13-8 7-2
WKU14-6 6-3
Georgia State10-11 6-3
Texas State8-11 5-3
South Alabama7-12 5-4
Arkansas-Litt le Rock
10-10 5-5
8-13 4-5
10-10 3-6
Troy7-13 3-6
2-18 1-8
UL-Monroe
UL-Lafayett e
UT-Arlington
T he men and women's basketball teams are on the road this week as they make a swing through Arkansas. The Lady Top-
pers, coming off a loss to Texas State, fi rst take on Arkansas State who is currently in fi rst place in the Sun Belt Conference standings. A win would put them in a fi rst place tie with Arkan-sas State for the conference lead. On Saturday they take on UALR before heading home to face Troy.
The men put their fi ve-game winning streak on the line this weekend as they take on UALR Friday night and Arkansas State Saturday night. The Toppers currently sit second in the confer-ence standings. While a win would not put them in fi rst place, it would put separation between second place and the rest of the conference.
FEBRUARY 6, 2014 B5WKUHERALD.COM
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SPORTSTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 @WKUHERALDSPORTSWKUHERALD.COM
The changes have begun to fall into place with WKU’s move to Con-ference USA. With the release of the Toppers’ 2014 football schedule Mon-day afternoon also came the release of new seating arrangements and ticket prices inside Smith Stadium.
No additions are being made to the structure of the stadium, but four new sections are going to be divided on the east sideline. Season tickets will become availble for Sections 129-132 at $150 per seat with a $175 Hilltopper Athletic Foundation (HAF) membership.
Those sections (and others in the lower section), were previously all open to WKU students, but Confer-ence USA rules state that the student section cannot be located any where between the 30-yard lines, or behind the visiting team’s sideline.
The student section will now cover sections 133-135 and 125-128. Associ-ate Athletic Director of Marketing Lind-say Boyden said the student section ex-tends into the berm and that it remains a fi rst-come-fi rst-serve section.
The Big Red Marching Band will now be located in section 126, with fl exibility to expand into section 125 if necessary. WKU Player Guests will now be seated in the Topper sections 129-132.
Ticket prices slightly increased for next season in comparison to last year, but by replacing an FCS oppo-nent with an FBS school and an extra home game, Boyden said the bigger picture shows a nearly unnoticeable change.
“With six home games on our 2014 schedule, our season ticket package pricing on a per-game basis will ac-tually be lower or stay the same in all areas except one price level, where the increase will only be 50 cents per game,” Boyden said.
Conference USA brings changes to Smith Stadium
WKU's new softball coach, Amy Tudor, visits WKU's fi eld on Monday. After graduating from WKU, Tudor coached at Belmont University before coming back to the Hill to lead the team she once represented. BRIAN POWERS/HERALD
T he WKU softball team played its fi rst season in 2000 and last year went to its fi rst ever NCAA
tournament. This year, however, the growing program will be led by one of its own: Amy Tudor.
Tudor, a 2002 graduate of WKU, returns to her alma mater to lead a team she helped start. A three-year cap-tain of the Lady Toppers, Tudor left her head coaching job at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne to come back to the Hill.
“It’s pretty special,” she said. “I think it’s a unique opportunity and when it presented itself, I felt like this was the place I was supposed to be. I feel very fortunate and blessed to be able to come back home.”
Tudor became the fourth coach in program history when Athletics Director Todd Stewart hired her in Au-gust. The job became available after former coach, Tyra Perry, left to become the head coach at Ball State Uni-versity.
Tudor said that the program is still fairly young and that it is heading in the right direction.
“When we started off the program we were all ex-cited and it was fun, and we ended up second in the league that year beating (Louisiana) Lafayette,” she said. “I think it’s always been a pretty solid program, and last season they fi nally made it to the postseason, which is a huge step in the right direction.”
Tudor said when she was a player here she never thought she would come back and coach. In fact, she wanted to be a lawyer and graduated from WKU with a degree in history and social studies and a minor in geography.
She was also involved on campus and experienced success in the classroom. She was a member of the Golden Key Honors Society and Kappa Delta Pi. She was also rewarded for her academic success as a six-time member of the Dean’s List, was named an All-American Scholar and was the recipient of the Com-missioner’s List Award.
Although she wanted to be a lawyer, she said coach-ing helped her stay involved in the game, and when the opportunity came about to return to WKU, she “jumped on it.”
She said the campus and city have changed since she was here.
“You know, the stoplights are still annoying,” she
This time last season Jeff Brohm, current coach and former offensive coordinator of the WKU football team, said WKU was “going to take advantage” of the relation-ship the coaching staff had with the city of Louisville and the rest of the state.
One year later, the Toppers are one step closer to being Kentucky's team — WKU signed 10 in-state players during National Signing Day on Wednesday.
Brohm, a Louisville native in his fi rst season as WKU’s coach, is dealing with an strange predicament in recruiting battles within Kentucky.
It’s an unusual circumstance for Brohm to recruit alongside former Coach Bobby Petri-no at WKU one year, and then recruit against Petrino — who accepted the same position at Louisville in January — the next season.
But Brohm never wavered in his pitch to the future Toppers. His message at the press
conference announcing the class Wednes-day was simple: any school trying to recruit the top high school players in Kentucky is going to have to go toe-to-toe with WKU.
“Our goal here is to compete for the best players in the state, and we think we have a lot to sell here,” Brohm said Wednesday. “We’re not going to back down from any-body and like I said before, this state has a lot to offer. We're always going to continue to recruit hard in the state of Kentucky.”
Floridian students have dominated past recruiting classes under former coaches Wil-lie Taggart and Petrino. Of the 33 high school and junior college players WKU signed last season, 14 were from the Sunshine State, while just four came from Kentucky.
This year, however, Brohm said he want-ed to make it a point of emphasis to recruit from areas within a “three-hour radius” of Bowling Green.
The result is a class that makes up for its lack of nationally known recruits by look-
"We are happy to get these guys and we think they will be excellent players for us," WKU football Head Coach Jeff Brohm said of the 2014 WKU football signing class during a press conference with media outlets on Wednesday. WKU signed 15 players, 10 of which hailed from Kentucky. JEFF BROWN/HERALD
Nick TruePosition: TEHigh school: High-lands High School, Fort ThomasHeight: 6-5Weight: 255 lbWe
Joe BrownPosition: DBHigh school: Butler High School, LouisvilleHeight: 5-10Weight: 180 lb
Will BushPosition: WRHigh school: Ballard High School, LouisvilleHeight: 5-11Weight: 190 lb
Before the phone rang, Joel Iyieg-buniwe had no intentions of play-ing high school football. He played in middle school only to prepare himself physically for basketball season. But after the phone rang — several times — the man more popularly known as “Iggy” changed his mind. His life would also change.
South Warren High School Athletic Director Chris Decker coached Iyieg-buniwe at Drakes Creek Middle School and saw the potential in his young player. All he had to do was call Iyieg-buniwe enough times to convince him to move so he could become a multi-sport athlete in high school.
“I knew what kind of athlete he was and I knew what kind of football player he was,” Decker said. We were starting our program here and we needed to get as many athletes as we could to get it going. He was one of the fi rst to pop in my mind.”
Four years later, Iyiegbuniwe’s name was leaping off of stat sheets and into the recruiting circuit as one of Ken-tucky’s best linebackers. On Wednes-day, he and teammate Adrian Middle-ton became the fi rst players at South Warren High School to sign on to play Division-I football – Iyiegbuniwe with
WKU, and Middleton to Kentucky.Iyiegbuniwe will graduate high
school ranked as the No. 12 prospect in Kentucky according to 247Sports.com. He was also rated the No. 150 safety prospect in the country by Scout.com. Iyiegbuniwe said his strongest suit is to play linebacker, but he’s not ruling out the possibility of playing at strong safety for the Toppers.
“It feels good fi nally getting the pa-per work done,” Iyiegbuniwe said. “To fi nally be offi cially welcomed into the Western family is a great feeling.”
As a junior in 2012, Iyiegbuniwe re-corded 64 tackles, three interceptions and four touchdowns. His senior year was cut short as South Warren, a school only in it’s third year of existence, ad-vanced all the way to the KHSAA 3A quarterfi nals. Iyiegbuniwe came down with an infection in his pelvic bone that sidelined him for a majority of the year. In only four games, he recorded 23 tackles, one interception and six touchdowns.
“It was a complicated deal,” Iyieg-buniwe said. “The doctors didn’t know how it happened and I didn’t know how it happened. As far as now, my body is great. I’m lifting, I’m running, I’m dunk-ing. Everything is fi ne.”
His mother, Abiola Iyiegbuniwe, said her family stayed strong through the process, calling her son “deter-
mined” and “strong-willed”. To see his work pay off in this fashion, she said, is something they have dreamed of.
“When the infection came in, we stayed together as a family and prayed to God that everything went well,” she said. “It was a battle. Today is a very special day because this is the fi rst time we’ve done something like this as a family.”
According to his rivals.com profi le,
Iyiegbuniwe also had offers from In-diana State and Purdue. Even through the coaching changes, he said from day one, his commitment was to a school, not a coach.
“Me, Nacarius (Fant) and the other guys wanted to stay,” Iyiegbuniwe said. “We didn’t just want to run off. We had committed to Western. I think it was important for us to stay and show our loyalty to the program.”
ing a lot like a Kentucky high school all-star roster.
“We’re really on top of talent in this state,” Brohm said. “We were able to get a lot of guys on our campus in the sum-mer, and we feel like we’ve got a great group of players from this state and we’re happy to have every one of them.”
WKU's in-state recruits come from all parts of the commonwealth — the Top-pers signed two players from Louisville, two from Paducah, two from Bowling Green, two from Shelbyville, one from Owensboro, and one from Fort Thom-as.
One of those Bowling Green recruits, South Warren High School linebacker Joel Iyiegbuniwe, said a lot of the Ken-tucky recruits know each other and have been in contact throughout the recruiting process, which helped to convince them all to stay with WKU af-ter Petrino left for Louisville.
“There's a lot of guys when I went on
my offi cial (visit) I was familiar with,” he said. “I think it's great for Western and great for Bowling Green and great for the players that the recruits are fa-miliar with one another.”
While the familiarity of the recruits with each other helped the Toppers pull in several recruits, Brohm's familiarity with high school football in Kentucky was also a big factor in WKU recruit-ing this year. Brohm, a former all-state quarterback at Louisville’s Trinity High School, spent six years (2003-08) as an assistant coach at Louisville before re-turning as WKU’s offensive coordina-tor.
He said the Kentucky players started to pile up thanks to the knowledge of in-state recruiting by the Topper coach-ing staff.
“There really wasn’t a plan to get so many," Brohm said. “We have a lot of connections in this state. For a long time I was an assistant before I got the head job here so I was able to get into the homes and to recruit a lot of people in this state.”
Nacarius Fant has always either been too small or too slow. He’s never been good enough or quick enough to make it to the next level. But don’t tell that to the three-time 5A state cham-pion and 2013 Kentucky Mr. Football wide receiver from Bowling Green High School. He’ll simply prove you wrong.
“I love that stuff,” Fant said about those who doubt his talents. “They tell me I can’t do anything, and that’s what’s pushed me this far. I’m a person that likes to prove people wrong. I feel like what I’ve done previously and me working hard for the future is hopefully going to have people not saying stuff like that, but it’s going to happen.”
The 5-foot-9, 170 pound receiver has been living his entire career to prove naysayers wrong. He holds every sin-gle-game, single-season and career re-ceiving record at Bowling Green High School, and is in the top-20 of his class in eight individual categories in the Kentucky High School Athletic Associa-tion record books.
He is one of two players coming out of high school to WKU rated a three-star athlete by Rivals.com, and 247Sports calls him the seventh best player in Kentucky. The honors and awards go on and on with an endless number of top-ranked colleges calling his name. Fant made his verbal decision to attend WKU back in June, and said the mo-ment was a dream come true when the ink met the paper Wednesday on Na-tional Signing Day.
“It’s a moment I’ve been waiting on for a while, and it’s fi nally here,” Fant said. “It’s only going up from here. I’ve been blessed to have all these wonder-ful people here to support me through-out all my success and I look forward to going over there. It’s a great coaching staff. I’m looking forward to playing un-der them.”
Fant said his recent offi cial visit to WKU showed that he could see time as a punt returner on top of playing as a slot receiver. Coach Jeff Brohm saw him
as a natural, all-around athlete. The coach also noted Fant as an anchor for the recruits that chose to stay at WKU for the entire time.
“I’ve kept in contact with all our re-cruits throughout the process and he’s been committed to us the whole time,” Brohm said. “He’s just a great kid. The fact that he was able to win Mr. Football as a receiver — I think is hard to do and he did it. I’ve been able to watch him practice and do a lot of things and he’s just a natural.”
Fant's size may have swayed some critics the wrong way, but his family has seen his gift his entire life.
“Even as a child, he didn’t look at cartoons,” his grandmother, Stephanie Fant, said. “He would be at my house at two years old and say, ‘Nana, you can take that team and I can take this team.' I just have to recognize that God is good because he blessed me with a grandchild that was born with a gift.”
Fant could have gone to many other places besides WKU. The fi rst-team All-State selection by the Associated Press could have gone to multiple schools in the Big-10 and Southeastern Conference. But staying close to home to his family was the most important thing for Fant.
“I wanted to stay loyal to my city,” Fant said. “I feel like de-committing from Western is a bad thing and I’m not a guy that does that. It was all about the coaching staff and staying at home and keeping the support I have.”
Fant is one of the 10 players from Kentucky to join the 2014 WKU football team in its fi rst year into Conference USA. Fant has been a vocal member of this class through social media and anywhere else he goes as an advocate for making WKU the place to be on the football fi eld – a place he calls home.
“There’s a lot of good athletes in the state of Kentucky that are coming to Western Kentucky,” Fant said. “They might not be fi ve-star players, but they’re players that we need. I think Coach Brohm and the coaching staff have done a good job of getting those players here and I’m looking forward to that next year.”
FEBRUARY 6, 2014C2 COLLEGE HEIGHTS HERALD
Iyiegbuniwe answers the call to WKU
South Warren High School linebacker Joel Iyiegbuniwe talks to the media after signing with WKU on National Signing Day on Wednesday. LUKE FRANKE/HERALD
Bowling Green High School wide receiver Nacarius Fant (center) signs with WKU while his father Marloshines Hines (left) and grandmother Stephanie Fant (right) support him on National Signing day on Wednesday. LUKE FRANKE/HERALD
From Purple to Red: Mr. Kentucky Football stays home with WKU
New coach Jeff Brohm made a state-ment at Wednesday's press conference an-nouncing WKU's 2014 signing class about the recruiting process this year, and the statement says a lot about how far the Topper football pro-gram has come in the
past few years."We even had to turn away guys,"
the coach said. "There were guys that called and wanted to commit and we were full. We had to explain that to them but that’s just a testament to how
well the recruiting has went and how easy it is of a sell of this university.”
Brohm's fi rst recruiting class doesn't look like the classes former coaches Willie Taggart and Bobby Petrino brought in. The coaches passed on trips to Florida in favor of picking up local players that stood out on the high school circuit.
The class might not have a lot of players who stand out nationally, but three years ago the Toppers were try-ing to reel in recruits after winning four games in three years. I bet a few of those players WKU had to turn away this sea-son would have gotten the nod if they had graduated a few years earlier.
Bowling Green High School star wide receiver Nacarius Fant, Ken-tucky's Mr. Football from this season,
committed to WKU months ago and has been a vocal supporter of the Top-pers since. WKU also received a letter of intent Wednesday from Ensworth High School running back D'Andre Ferby, a Nashville native who won Division-II Mr. Football in Tennessee this year. Pulling top-tier local recruits like that should be a big plus for a coaching staff looking to make a name as a top pro-gram in the region.
"We not only got a Mr. Football from Kentucky, but a Mr. Football from Ten-nessee, so that’s a huge get as well," Brohm said.
Consistently pulling good recruits is going to be an important challenge for WKU as it continues to make the tran-sition up from the Sun Belt Conference to Conference USA. This is the fi rst
offseason the Toppers have been able to tell recruits they will be playing in C-USA and according to Rivals.com's recruiting ranks, WKU has the No. 2 class in the conference already. That's a good start for a team that still has the Sun Belt logo on its fi eld.
The bottom line, though, is that every fan base is optimistic on National Signing Day. Every fan base likes to think their school has brought in recruits capable of com-peting for a title, or at least winning more games. It's how those players perform when they actually take the fi eld that makes a good recruiting class. This group of players might look good on paper right now, but they'll really start to create their leg-acy moving forward.
New recruits are first piece of C-USA legacy
AULBACHColumnist
Pos. Ht. Wt. Hometown Joe Brown DB 5-10 180 Butler HS, Louisville, Ky.
Name
Will Bush WR 5-11 190 Ballard HS, Louisville, Ky.
Ryan Duvall LB 6-5 230 Apollo HS, Owensboro, Ky.
Dennis Edwards OL 6-1 310 Southwest Gwinnett HS, Snellville, Ga.
Nacarius Fant WR 5-9 170 Bowling Green HS, Bowling Green, Ky.
